Trans People in Prisons Not Allowed for Gender Reassignment

Click to read the article in Turkish/Kurdish

The Human Rights Association (İHD) Commission Against Racism and Discrimination and LGBTI+ organizations have held a press conference in İstanbul branch building concerning ill-treatment against trans women prisoners Buse and Diren kept in Tekirdağ Type F Prison.

Buse was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without a lawyer representing her for “being a member of an illegal organization” as she was 22 years old. Buse is 40 years old and she is defining her sexual identity as “inmate”.

Diren was arrested in August 2017 in Diyarbakır on charge of “propagandizing for an illegal organization” and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Buse has 17 years to serve and Diren will be released next year. They are both kept in confinement cell in the prison.

Eren Keskin: The court approves surgery, the ministry ignores court decision

Eren Keskin said that he visited the prison twice and conveyed what Buse and Diren went through in prison and judicial process:

“According to Civil Law, a person applies to the court for permission to have sex reassignment surgery. The court refers the person to a general public hospital.

“The hospital committee gives a report stating that ‘the person is physically and psychologically eligible for gender reassignment’ and the court allows the ‘gender reassignment’”.

 “However, the Ministry of Justice General Directorate of Prisons and Detention Houses decided that the report given for Buse is not enough.

“And it added, ‘…it must be determined whether the gender sex reassignment surgery is medically necessary for the aforementioned person to continue his or her life in the institution, and if it is not necessary, the prisoner can undergo the surgery after he or she is discharged…’

“Buse has only one wish. ‘I want to escape from the prison in my body’, Buse says”. (TP/TK)